Christy Critical Essays

Analysis

Catherine Marshall’s Christy is a well-researched, in-depth portrayal of the highlanders of southern Appalachia and their Scottish forebears. The Appalachian mountain dialect, descriptions of music and musical instruments, superstitions and folkways—all bear the stamp of authenticity. The novel’s audience is not confined to juveniles and young adults, but the book appeals to this age group, especially since the protagonist is a young woman in her first solitary confrontation with adult issues. The issues treated are a timeless series of “firsts”: living away from home for the first time, facing the challenges of a first job, developing a personal identity, testing inherited beliefs, enduring the first close encounter with illness and death, and falling in love. Christy’s rites of passage are the major theme of the novel.

In telling her mother’s story, Marshall describes a classic coming-of-age pattern for young Christian women: An idealistic young woman of Christian beliefs answers a lofty call to serve humanity; she emerges at the end of the experience with idealism intact but well-tempered by a large dose of reality. After nearly a year of trial by various ordeals, she has tested her inherited beliefs, sorted them out, and claimed them as her own. This process, the discovery of the self, forms part of the passage into adulthood for every young person; Marshall portrays it with acute insight and sensitivity.